


Start of a New Era

by KhanmiR1



Series: A New Era [1]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, Enchantment, F/M, Falling In Love, Good Intentions, One-Sided Attraction, Romance, Romantic Interest, Two Shot, is Phineas falling in love, pride in his work, successful experiment, the start of something Grand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22644643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KhanmiR1/pseuds/KhanmiR1
Summary: Phineas finally succeeds where he had so many times before failed. This now living colonist is enchanting; but he mustn't get too attached.  Short, one-shot turned two.
Relationships: The Captain/Phineas Welles
Series: A New Era [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645480
Kudos: 38





	1. Bittersweet

Heartbeat detected. 20 beats per minute.  
52 beats per minute.  
76 beats per minute.

"No, no, this is much to quick of an incline," Phineas muttered under his breath as he prattled away at the keyboard. He didn't think it would need recalibrating so soon after revival. The software was sound. His program was careful and tested. After 12 attempts, one would assume there would be at least some semblance of refinery in this process.

105 beats per minute.

"No! How can this be happening again?!" the machinery buzzed and shook with anger as if to chide him for yelling. it seemed no amount of swearing and calculations could calm this technological beast. Phineas felt in his gut the oncoming stab of failure. But he pressed on, determined to break the cycle.

137 beats per minute.

A muted pop was heard from somewhere suspicious but the scientist merely palmed the sweat from his brow and continued. Amidst a now constant sizzling sound, he entered code after code of his confounded algorithmic program. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He was supposed to be able to save them.

It seemed time stood still as panic flooded his mind and froze him in place. He couldn't type; he couldn't think. He could only turn his head to face the all too recent failures discarded haphazardly on the floor. What had made him think he could toy with life like this? What had possessed him to try to recreate near perfect conditions for revival in an utterly imperfect scenario? He was playing god in the devil's sandbox.

Normalizing...102 beats per minute.

...what? Phineas blinked through his self-depricating thoughts. That couldn't be right. He turned to eye the screen readout, almost hoping it would read as an error. Another adage to his cycle of failure was expected; prepared for, even. The screen stayed true to it's assessment and he felt his heart fall into his stomach. It was...working?

63 beats per minute.

His mouth hung open as the world around him faded to white noise. Even as digital readouts sounded from directly in front of him, his focus remained only on her. He hadn't looked too closely at her face before this. But as her heartbeat normalized to a steady 42 beats per minute, he felt something change within him. It was a strange feeling. He hadn't felt it in a long time. Hope.

Phineas cracked his fingers and rolled his shoulders back in quiet relief. He stood before his patient, watching her rythmic breathing. He had done it. He needed to sit down for a moment. Easing into a nearby chair felt as if he had walked for days upon days without any rest. How many hours had he spent slaving over this very terminal? He rolled his chair over to her pod and held a finger up to her nose. The breaths were light and feathery, and came in short bursts. They coated his hand in warmth and he realized then just how cold it was in the lab.

How long had he been awake for? The relief of a life now secured seemed to suddenly wake him from his own slumber of sorts. He gently moved a strand of dark hair from his subject's face and scanned his laboratory. It was desolate and eerie. The only lights were one directly above him and another highlighting the entryway to the hanger. There was cystypig guts all over the floor in one corner, and cybernetic grafts and metal parts in another. If he had been asleep for 70 years, he would not want to wake up to this.

Punching a few keys into the terminal summoned his SAM unit. With all the remaining strength left in him, he quietly ordered for the lab to be tidied. Phineas looked back at the woman. Still asleep. Of course she wouldn't wake so soon. But he was nervous now. As nervous as one could be with minimal energy. What would she think when she saw him? What would she say?

Phineas chuckled quietly to himself as visions of her eyes opening and the shrillest of screams sounding when she realized she was in a strange place alone with an even stranger man. That would be his luck. To finally have a successful revival after all this time, and then to have his subject hate him from the instant they awaken.

He decided then, that it would be best if they skip formalities altogether. Musn't get too attached, he thought as he rolled over to the terminal to type out a plan. The more he looked at her, the more proud he would become and the more emotional he would feel. Can't have that now; not in this day and age. Emotions tended to get in the way of logical decision-making, and Phineas needed a clear head for what was to come.

With a click and hiss of the cryo-pod door latch, she was sealed away again. Only to be thrown in the atmospheric aether when she was ready. Despite his efforts to stop himself, Phineas paused at the glass window to Victoria's sleeping form. He had already made the mistake of seeing her name on her profile sheet; what was another small mistake now? Simply looking at her wouldn't hurt.

Oh, but how far in denial the good doctor was. She was beautiful. He supposed her average features wouldn't catch eye from half the general population, but he was biased. He knew her name now, and it fit her so well. Dark, chocolate hair framing a tanned face. A sprinkle of spots and freckles along her cheeks and nose bridge. Laugh lines around her mouth and a few worry lines dashed across her forehead. Oh, she had crows feet at the corners of her eyes. How heartwarming. She had the look of someone who liked to smile.

Phineas found himself smiling at the thought of what hers might look like. He sighed and pressed his forehead to the glass.

"Best not to get attached." he whispered. She would soon be dropped far below to the surface of Terra 2, where many a mercenary had met their bitter end for his own wretched experiments. This small specimen of a woman would barely enjoy the light of the Halcyon sun before likely following suit. It truly was cruel of him. To bring back to life, only to take it away again.

Yes, he was playing God and not even the Board could stop him.


	2. Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter of this little two-shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think I might make this a series. I quite like Phineas and Victoria.

What is the protocol on how to treat a person you just brought back from the dead? Phineas stole a glance across the room after dropping his pen on the ground. Not even a peep out of her.

It had been roughly a week since Victoria had taken her first real breath of recycled Halcyon air. She did everything she was told. From his rather brash demand of landing a pod onto Terra 2 to successfully claiming his late associate's space faring vessel. When she had returned, her hair was tousled and face covered in dirt. She smelled like burnt flesh and antiseptic, and her cryo suit was in utter shambles. Despite looking like Terra 2 tore her a new one, Victoria had meerly smiled brightly at him when he opened the airlock and pointed to her new ship.

She had called it the Unreliable, and said she didn't choose the name but thought it was fitting for her. Phineas had just stared at her incredulously, wondering how in the great galaxies she had survived the entire ordeal. He had sent her on a one way ticket to death's doorstep and she came back to him very much alive. Smiling, no less. Victoria then asked him if he was going to let her in or just stand there staring at the goods.

Oh, that's right. He had been staring at her.

Wordlessly, he had scrounged around a few drawers and pulled out a shirt and slacks that didn't fit him anymore. Phineas had noticed that her smile was fading with each minute that went by. With the likely copious amounts of adrenaline finally leaving her, she was due to succumb to fatigue. But she never fell asleep after that. Instead, she changed behind some crates, and sat at his weapon's bench. A light pattern of clatter resounded through the lab as she worked at fixing up some gun she had acquired. Making it her own.

He realized he had simply been watching her this whole time. And when she didn't make a movement at the sound of his pen hitting the floor, he wondered if she had gone deaf. He had practically felt the echo waves around him.

And my, was she still so grimy.

Despite his better judgement, Phineas went to grab a towel and headed for the poor girl. She was busy into her work now, as focused as ever. He approached carefully, making sure to clear his throat before he got too close.

Victoria turned her head towards him. She smiled softly at him and whispered a tiny hey before facing back towards her project.

"You have mud on you." That was the best he could do? Unbelievable, Phineas.

"Yeah, I fell into a pit of something. It looked like tar, but smelled like...peanut butter." Her small hand went up to move some strands of hair behind her ear.

Phineas raised an eyebrow. "You didn't...taste it, did you?" Her light chuckle brought his shoulders down. Why was he so tense? She shook her head and turned a bit to face him more. With her head now resting on her hand with an elbow on the table, she looked so much more tired than before.

"The stuff was thick and i almost couldn't get back out. The cemetary guy helped me. Said I was lucky he was out hunting for rocks to lay by graves, otherwise I would have died." Victoria emphasized the word 'died' with both eyebrows up. It made him shudder to think about that.

She pointed at the towel in his hand. "Is that for me?" Phineas nodded and held it out for her, but she never took it. Instead she just sort of looked at it, as if silently willing it to float to her. Of course he would successfully revive a big baby. He snorted and brought the towel up to her face and began to gently wipe away the blemishes from her skin.

He couldn't remember when he had turned his body to face her completely, or when he had grabbed hold of her chin to keep steady while he cleaned her off. But she was looking right up at him through dark eyelashes while the towel was run along her cheeks, across her forehead, over her nose. Didn't she know prolonged eye contact could make people uncomfortable?

It especially made him notice how close they were. How he could feel her breath against his thumb. And how his hand holding the towel was no longer rubbing hard to clean off grime, but was instead caressing softly against her cheek. Luckily, she snapped him out of the trance.

"All done?" he heard her almost squeek out quietly. Phineas cleared his throat and stepped away, but not without noticing how cold his hands suddenly felt.

He needed to go work on something. Anything. Across the room too, yes. The hasty retreat back to his cystypig testing area was surely noticed by her, but he didn't care. Phineas berated himself in his head for being foolish enough to give in to his baser instincts at times. This was not some star-crossed lovers fantasy, this was real. And he was only drawn to her because she was his first success story. Nothing special about Victoria. If it hadn't been her, it would have been another lucky number 13.

They had work to accomplish, and the only way anything could get done was if she continued to venture out where he could not. She was the go-getter, he was the lead. And business was dangerous, as she so clearly proved by almost dying. If Phineas got attached to this little helper of his, nothing would progress and the colonists would never be saved.

He sighed rather loudly and dejectedly. Victoria was simply a means to an end, and the only way things would work out without any hurt feelings, was if they kept it that way. Yes, this way was much easier than the alternative.

"Hey Phineas, do you have some kind of lazer etching device somewhere? I want to draw a little penis on the side of my new gun." Phineas looked at his notes as if they held the answer to a burning question. Not the one just asked by his ridiculous survivor, but the one that burned and nagged at the back of his mind any time she opened her mouth.

How in the hell was he expected to keep her at arms length away? This woman was crazy, and murderous, and hilarious, and so human all at once. It confused and angered him. For the first time in decades, Phineas needed a drink.


End file.
